This Chinese export punch-bowl shows half-built ships set in an imaginary Chinese landscape. It is inscribed: 'Success to Mr Barnard's Yard', within an Adamesque oval panel surmounted by medallions and ribbons. The outside is painted in grisaille with line drawings of ships in frame and ready for fitting out. They represent a ketch in frame and a mid-18th century merchant vessel; the buildings, scenery and river are Chinese additions to the design. There is a finely painted gold trellis border around the rim, above an egg and dart border, a husk-chain pattern round the foot.

The Chinese artist probably copied the vessels from engravings in Fredrik Henrik af Chapman's 'Architectura Navalis Mercantoria', first published in Stockholm in 1768 and later used to illustrate the shipbuilding section in Diderot and d’Alembert ‘Encyclopédie Méthodique’ of 1783. The inscription in the bottom of the bowl, ‘Success to Mr Barnard’s Yard’, refers to the Barnard family of shipbuilders. They had yards at Ipswich, Harwich and Deptford and built ships for the Royal Navy and the Honourable East India Company.